Sports
Video Of Former Hoover Star Misrepresented, According To Student
A video posted on social media claiming to show a Hoover and current UGA player fighting with a special needs student has been refuted.
HOOVER, AL — In what is becoming a common occurrence in the age of social media, a college football news Twitter account posted a video Wednesday claiming to feature Georgia wide receiver and former Hoover High School star George Pickens "assaulting a mentally handicapped student back in high school." The legitimacy of the post by College Football Quotes has been refuted, namely by the person Pickens was "assaulting."
Jonathan Martin, a former teammate of Pickens at Hoover, is reportedly the person shown in the video in a fight with Pickens. Martin took to Twitter himself to refute not only the nature of the fight in the video, but also College Football Quotes' claim that he is "mentally handicapped."
A OLD video of me and @geo_Thagoat y’all have the story all wrong I am not mentally handicapped in no way shape or form and I was not brutally abused. I maintain a 3.1 GPA and I am a nationally ranked track athlete @cfbquotes you didn’t know me before but you’ll know me soon https://t.co/CqvA2iT1er
— Jonathan Martin (@jondmart) October 9, 2019
The post by the account says, "Should Pickens face any punishment for this incident? And if so, to what degree?"
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The responses to the post were mostly Twitter followers saying Pickens should be expelled from UGA, kicked off the football team, arrested and worse.
Other students from Hoover came to Pickens' defense on Twitter.
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If y’all are gonna post something like this to try and ruin someone’s career. Have facts. Quit making stuff up @cfbquotes pic.twitter.com/U9CjXNXnHV
— Zach Elam (@ZachElam7) October 9, 2019
The post has been removed by College Football Quotes and the owners of the account have issued an apology to both Pickens and Martin.
We want to make a public apology for the posting of a old video with false information, we were simply reposting the video from another source so as we often due here. As soon as we received official word from the parties involved, we took down the post in question. https://t.co/08DGrQpim7
— College Football “Quotes” (@cfbquotes) October 9, 2019
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